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Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Rumors have been floating around Houston and beyond concerning KTRK 13 Undercover's Wayne Dolcefino. Did they leave him or did he leave them? I heard it all. Naturally anything involving Wayne-O will be larger than life, so these rumors have travelled around at the speed of light.

That's why I'm so glad I tuned into Live at 5 tonight to get my daily Melanie Lawson and Art Rascon fix. Turns out an announcement about the missing Dolcefino was made. The station reported that Wayne "elected to leave."

While we will probably never know the full reason for the Dolcefino/channel 13 breakup, the general consensus is that he and the higher ups butted heads over his stories. Let's face it, Dolcefino has an aggressive, provocative, hard hitting and sometimes comical style that just doesn't exist much on TV anymore. More often than not in television news these days, the story's promo is more interesting than the actual content.

Love him or hate him, Houston TV sweeps months will seem smaller from now on. Dolcefino wasn't afraid to take on political figures, the police, the schools...pretty much anyone with any authority. Who else besides Dolcefino is willing to actually get put in handcuffs in the course of reporting a story?

So what happens from here? Obviously we don't know the terms of the split, but there could be a non-compete clause for Mr. Dolcefino so he might not be able to appear on Houston TV for a period of time. My guess is that another Houston TV station will hire him. In fact, one of his old bosses is in charge at a station practically down the street from abc13 so you never know what can happen. If anyone should hire him at this point in my opinion, my vote is for KHOU 11.

I can't imagine a colorful character like Dolcefino would just retire at this point, but then you never know.

As I've blogged before, Wayne Dolcefino has been a staple at the ABC owned station since 1985. He's won a ton of awards such as 25 Emmys, three IRE medals, the 2012 Edward R. Murrow Best Investigation and a lot more. Before KTRK, Dolcefino was in radio at 740 KTRH and 590 KLBJ Austin.

On a personal note, when working at the same station, Dolcefino did make my life rough once or twice. But on the other side of that, Dolcefino sent me a nice email concerning my work while I was freelance reporting at KIAH 39. I appreciated that coming from him of all people.

Personally, I'd like to see Dolcefino back on air in Houston. He certainly knows how to keep things interesting. And as Dolcefino has brought up on this very blog, where will inspiration come from for some other journalists in town if he's gone?

I reached out to Wayne for this post but did not hear back from him.

UPDATE
This will be the biggest Houston media story of the year, if not the decade. My blog traffic is exploding.

KTRK's GM said the station had to reel Wayne in on some of his stories because of concerns he was going too far.

There is no way KRIV's news director would hire Wayne. Tom has said he is not a big fan of investigative stories because they can result in legal problems and because he doesn't believe there is enough out there to warrant an investigative team, such as Wayne conducted.

KHOU likely would be disinclined to hire Wayne because Belo is shy about legal costs that can be associated with such stories and because Belo does not subscribe to investivative work that casts the reporter as an entertainer. Wayne's port series was a good example of the entertainment approach he used.

KPRC is the station that probably would have interest in talking to Wayne about hiring him.

Wayne was a true a-hole, you need those type of people to keep others honest. You either loved or hated him. KTRK doesn't like anyone who rocks the boat, producers/editors/photogs, they'll find a way to get rid of you. He had a hefty salary, somewhere in the range of 300K plus. I doubt anyone will hire him for that amount but he'll resurface somewhere because he has to feed his ego.

Hi Mike, tyvm for giving me a better insight on this media story of the year!!!!! Wayne Doelcefino,was one of the reasons I watched the station, He made sure that the American People and Tax Payers was aware of a whole lot of corruption by big Boss Hogs, including some Police Departments, and at the same time putting him and his families life in danger!!!!!!! WHAT A HORRIBLE RISK THOU, he surely will be missed by me, He will not have any problems gaining employment. What we all must remember is (KNOWLEDGE IS POWER)

....I believe that many reporters are unwilling to tell what they know is the truth regarding Wayne's departure from Channel 13.The simple answer is always the truth. Wayne and his staff had been working on the graft and corruption within the Houston Livestock and Rodeo Association. He had a lot of pressure coming from his bosses as well as Disney, who didn't want to take on the Association which is filled with Millionaires and powerful backers. Wayne kept resisting and was eventually shown the door.